Santa Anita Gets OK for Horse Racing To Resume
Racing continued at Santa Anita on Friday afternoon,, one day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order for most Golden State residents to stay at home with few exceptions to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. K P All Systems Go wins the featured race at Santa Anita Friday. Santa Anita continued racing a day after California’s governor issued a ‘stay home’ order for most residents because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The California State Public Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health is ordering all individuals living in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence, except as needed to maintain continuity of operation of the federal critical infrastructure sectors, critical government services, schools, childcare, and construction, including housing construction,” said Jesse Melgar, press secretary for Newsom, in an email to Casino.org.
Racing also took place up the coast in Berkeley at Golden Gate Fields, Santa Anita’s sister track.
Nearly 20 minutes after the first race of the day finished, Santa Anita officials released a statement saying government and racing leaders were consulted before they decided to continue racing. Just like last weekend, Santa Anita ran without fans in the grandstand to abide by government orders to limit crowd sizes. Santa Anita and Golden Gate are taking other measures to protect their workers from people currently based at out-of-state tracks in an effort to reduce the coronavirus risk.
Friday’s racing, deemed necessary to protect the horses, served an interesting juxtaposition from where the southern California track was this time a year ago. Then, officials closed it for three weeks to examine its surface and review necropsy records from more than 20 horses that died in a two-month span there in an effort to making racing safer.
Santa Anita and Golden Gate have taken measures to ensure the public can not access the grandstand during the coronavirus emergency, and Baedeker added that Board Chairman Greg Ferraro agrees with the position.
